On the largest stage, with the world watching, the best hockey player in the Olympic tournament was Drew Doughty.

And through three rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs — if the Conn Smythe Trophy was given out today — the most deserving player in the post-season has been Doughty.

Which raises a question never really contemplated before, a matter being discussed informally as the Stanley Cup final is about to begin: Is Drew Doughty now the best player in hockey?

He has never really been in this kind of conversation before, the type normally reserved for Sidney Crosby or Alexander Ovechkin, maybe a Jonathan Toews. Doughty’s not the best scorer, he hasn’t won a Norris Trophy, isn’t sure he’ll ever win one. (Which, by the way, makes him angry.) He won’t win the Hart Trophy: Crosby, who had a crummy playoffs in Pittsburgh, will claim the most valuable player award.

But the game is first and foremost about victories. It’s about making plays. It’s about being physical. It’s about seeing people others can’t see. It’s about decision making. It’s about protecting the puck. It’s about not being scored on. It’s about leadership. It’s about adapting to circumstances. It’s about reading the play and the clock.

“That’s Drew Doughty,” said his teammate Matt Greene. “Nobody does what he does. He does so many things extremely well. He’s a two-way defenceman. He shuts down the other team’s best line. He scores big goals for us. He makes plays. He’s physical, He takes hits, gives hits. And if you watch him, sometimes it seems like he has eyes in the back of his head. He sees things nobody else sees.

“I don’t know if he’s the best player in hockey but he’s certainly the best defenceman.’

Maybe the most confident defenceman. Maybe the defenceman who puts the most pressure on himself to be great. He doesn’t care much if he scores but never wants to be scored on. He loves big games, lives for big games, changes them.

“I like the pressure,” said Doughty, just 24, just 24 dammit. “I just step up on these occasions. I want to be the guy who makes a difference for my team to win. My ultimate thing is just winning, that’s all I care about. It’s being a winner and helping this team win. I’ll do anything it takes. Anything.”

He wasn’t great in the first period of Game 7 against Chicago. He knew that. He was just OK in the second period when coach Darryl Sutter called him in for a chat between periods. In the third period and OT, he was awesome.

You sit and listen to Doughty at the podium on Stanley Cup media day and there seems to be no challenge he doesn’t welcome. He only compares himself to the best players in hockey. That’s not ego speaking, that’s reality and expectation, his own.

“I want to be the best defenceman in the world,” said the best defenceman in the world. Duncan Keith will win the Norris. Doughty was better in the Western Conference final and throughout the entire playoffs. Zdeno Chara is a Norris candidate. He looked a touch slow in the series against Montreal. The great Shea Weber didn’t make the post-season, again

Which makes it hard for Doughty to trust the Norris voting, to accept not being a final three candidate. “I kind of ignore what people say about me and about other guys and how they’re better than me

“At the end of the day, people will judge me not by how many Norris Trophy’s I win, if I win any at all, (but) by how many Stanley Cups I win.”

He has one now, should have two by best week. Two Olympic gold medals and two Stanley Cups and he doesn’t turn 25 until December.

He thought he had a great regular season, although even Kings management will tell you he had a little post-Sochi slump of sorts. He thought he was lucky in Sochi. He likes his game in this post-season. “I don’t have the points that other guys get but I don’t play in the East and I don’t play a full two minutes on the power play. My team uses me in every situation. My name may never be on that trophy. I would like it to be. That’s not my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal is winning Stanley Cups.

“I’m so competitive and I want to win so bad. And I’ll do anything it takes and that’s what separates me from others.”

Denis Potvin played a game somewhat similar to Doughty’s, with more offence on a more complete team. He won four Cups. The best player in those days was Wayne Gretzky, the best goal-scorer, Mike Bossy.

There are no Bossy’s in today’s NHL and there will never be another Gretzky and the change in coaching and defence and goaltending means no one will score like that again. And with that change, the role of the No. 1 defenceman, the kind who can combine offence and defence, puck-moving and scoring, has grown exponentially. Duncan Keith has won two Cups. Nicklas Lidstrom won four in Detroit. Scott Niedermayer won four. And Chris Pronger won one Cup, lost twice in the final in a five-year period.

Now it’s Doughty’s turn. At 24, he’s getting older and better.

“I was fortunate enough to make the NHL right out of junior,” he said. “When you’re doing that you’re kind of forced to grow up. I was 18, living on my own, already, paying my own bills, doing those kind of things, having to do my own laundry, you’re forced to grow up right away. It’s not like it’s a bad thing. Being around older guys, knowing you’re now looked up to by little kids. That’s forces you to grow up. I guess I grew up quickly.”